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Topic: What is everyones goals for this year. (Read 23598 times)

I have 6 hives that are going into winter and I am hoping for them to come out I want to raise my own queens and split them and maybe buy a few more nucs to help expand. where is everyone at and what do you want out of this season.

My goal this year is to better learn how to bring along a strong hive. It seems that whenever my numbers get built up, they swarm, so I'm not doing something right. I want to try and figure out what that is.

We have two beeks, in particular, in our club that are very good at it. If I'm lucky, and maybe even figure out the right bribe, I'm hoping I can get them to help me with an inspection!

started last year with 2 nucs. did a cut out of 2 colonies at one location, they didn't make it. Picked up one small swarm; they absconded. Purchased 3 more hives early fall. then one of my original hives died. so now I have 4.Plan is to split those, if they make it through winter, to make 12. Catch as many swarms as I can. Do some cutouts. I'd like to end next year with 20 hives. then in 2013 rent to local blueberry growers.

for those wanting to catch swarms. I took a jar of honey to the police officer in charge of animal control. He said that he would be glad to send people with bee problems my way. He didn't have anyone else locally to handle such issues.

i plan to get to 10 strong full hives, this should bring in ample honey, allow me to make some serious number of splits and have the nucs or eight frame deeps ready in the months before christmas. I am also looking forward to establishing a stand at a local market after I buy my new house. I will get a spot and try to be there every week with honey, chunk honey, fresh comb, candles and hive bodies. With this I will hopefully establish myself as the local bee man and maybe teach some classes and possibly mentor people.

I am aiming to have te strong hives and ten nucs ready for sale by the end of Novemeber, they will have homebred queens and should give me a good inco,e for christmas.

Just got the last of the bees down here to CA . Shipped them from the cold in eastern WA. They sure love the 50 degrees here. Went through them and only culled 38 out of 2300. Very happy with my winter losses. My goals for 2012 are to sell 600 hives, make up an additional 700 hives out of my new equipment, and make 700 five frame nucs to sell this April..and with a little luck from mother nature make a 100 # average honey crop. :-D

I went into this winter with 7 hives. Six are still alive. They are getting light on stores so I gave them candy boards and made some protein patties. I am monitoring them pretty close and plan on making more candy to put right into some deep frames. I also am going to do that with the mega-bee (held in place with hardware cloth). Therefore, my first goal is to keep these six hives alive! After that, I am going to make a slew of nucs/swarm traps, and try to build up my colonies to around fifteen. I also do removals. One of the people who want me to put hives on their property has a three acre pasture that she is going to have disced for me to put sweet clover and buckwheat in. I want to get about 8 to 10 hives there.